The following charts illustrate the family of Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism.
The first chart shows the Baal Shem Tov's close family: his closest relatives, by blood and by marriage. This is meant to clarify the various family relations mentioned in the Baal Shem Tov's biography.
The second chart shows his descendants to the fourth generation.
The Baal Shem Tov did not found a Hasidic dynasty proper, as his immediate successor was his student, Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, and not any of his descendants. Even so, the descendants of the Baal Shem Tov were revered. [1] As recorded in the early Hasidic work Mekor Boruch (first published in 1880 from handwritten manuscripts), at the time of the Baal Shem Tov's death, Rabbi Pinchas of Korets and Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonoye, two of the Baal Shem Tov's closest disciples, reported to the Hasidim that the Baal Shem Tov had designated his grandson Reb Boruch as his successor and instructed Reb Pinchas to take responsibility to carry out those wishes. Reb Boruch was only seven at the time of his grandfather's death, and was raised in Reb Pinchas' home, where the Baal Shem Tov's other close disciples and other leaders of the Hasidic movement visited regularly to check on his progress and assist with his preparation to assume his grandfather's mantle.
Eventually, his grandson R. Baruch of Mezhbuzh established his Hasidic court, and was the first Chassidic Rebbe.
Other descendants became allied by marriage to other powerful Hasidic dynasties (e.g. Chernobyl, Karlin-Stolin), producing many dynasties, including some of the dynasties still active today (e.g. Skver, Vizhnitz). Thus the family of the Baal Shem Tov can be considered a sort of Hasidic dynasty in its own right, and is often treated as such in reference works on Hasidic dynasties [2] where it is sometimes referred to as the Mezhbuzh dynasty. (This term is sometimes used specifically for the dynasty of R. Baruch of Mezhbuzh, see Mezhbizh (Hasidic dynasty), or for an unrelated dynasty from Mezhbuzh: see Apta (Hasidic dynasty).)
Eliezer | Sara | R. Efrayim (Brody) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(i) ? | R. Yisrael Baal Shem Tov | (ii) Chana | R. Gershon of Kitov | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
R. Yechiel | Odl | (i) ? | R. Tsvi | (ii) Beila | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||